Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "The Spanish Navy in 1898 - Armada Options" video.

Not only Spain but the entire Spanish-speaking world. Here is a photo of an Argentine Navy Super Etendard: https://www.airteamimages.com/dassault-super-etendard_0764_argentina---navy_141905_large.html
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24:43 US was already lined up against Japan in 1940. mindful of balance of power. Japan knew that US was getting ready to intervene and would have still attacked Pearl Harbor even if Spain still held the Philippines or even if they were independent - and it would have been interesting to see whose puppet state the independent Philippines would have ended up being: US, Japanese or British (I doubt the Dutch, or the Chinese would have had the strength or to support Philippine bid for independence and the French would not be interested).
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@MrDirigible Japan would have invaded and easily captured the Philippines, notably all ports and facilities that could serve as bases for anything other than guerrilla bands. And they could dedicate vast numbers of metropolitan troops for any counter-insurgency with locals only as intel and auxiliaries. Also they had extensive experience in policing in Korea, Taiwan and their concessions in China and. Lastly one could look at how the Germans fared in the Asian holdings they historically did possess - they were quickly defeated and captured. A German army in the Philippines would have only meant that many fewer troops on the major European fronts. On the other hand Japan historically contributed very little directly to the fighting in Europe (apart from sending some destroyers to the Mediterranean I don't know what else - I've never heard of any sizable army contingents) so tying up large numbers of Japanese troops in the Philippines would have had exactly 0 effect on the fighting on the decisive fronts.
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@MrDirigible Whatever the Germans decided to station at the Philippines would have to fight the entire IJN and whatever RN (and its satellite RAN) decided to send against it to ensure absolute superiority. And the RN could spare it since the entire German HSF could not go toe to toe with RN alone for more than a few hours let alone RN + IJN (assuming the French, Russian and later also Italian navies held the A-H and later also Turkish navies at bay as the historically did, minus a few A-H ships pre deployed to the Far East of course). Overall balance of power would have been the same, it is just a matter of distribution. Oh btw I did not even consider Germans as a serious backer of the Philippine independence - just look at the Agadir Crisis. The big colonial powers already found common interest in clamping them down.
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@MrDirigible German subs were never a game changer in fleet actions because the fleets were much faster. Japan captured and held the Philippines between early 1942 and late 1944 while fighting China, UK and USA. In 1914-5 they would have only faced the Germans on the islands who would have had no hope of reinforcements or resupply. Germans would have been handily defeated long before the war ended and the absence of those troops in France or Russia would have been painfully felt.
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chris younts Nobody ever asked the US public whether the US should enter a war. Nobody. Ever. And it will stay that way rest assured. Once the electons are over, whoever was elected does what he and his backers want for 4 years. If he fails his backers he gets impeached or killed and the vice president takes over and does what they want. Nobody asks the general public what to do and for both good and bad reasons: the bad one is corruption, the good one is expediency. That is why it is called REPRESENTATIVE "democracy" (or more correctly republic, although both words really mean the same just in Greek vs Latin except the Latin word, unlike the Greek one, has a formal meaning as a form of government). PS note that just prior to US entry to WW1 Woodrow Wilson was elected on a "He kept us out of the war" slogan. Well, at least they were decent enough to use the past tense. US elections are the biggest sham in the world. Also no US president was ever impeached or killed for going to war (ok we just might see that one day if they bite catastrophically more than they could chew but it never happened thus far).
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